Institutionalization and Depoliticization of the Right to the City: Changing Scenarios for Radical Social Movements

The right to the city, a concept previously associated with radical social movements, has been accepted by several governments and has inspired new public policies. However, some authors see this process of institutionalization as involving a loss of a significant part of the radical origins of the concept. This article approaches this process and the new opportunities and limitations it may entail for social movement organizations with a more radical perspective on the right to the city. We explore the paradigmatic case of Brazil and the action of a particular organization, the Movimento dos Sem Teto da Bahia (MSTB, or Homeless Movement of Bahia) in the city of Salvador. We draw on the discussion of the politics of the right to the city and on an original combination of social movement theories and critical discourse analysis in order to analyse political‐institutional and discursive changes in urban reform in Brazil and Salvador. We then analyse how the MSTB moves within this new context, navigating its tensions and contradictions while advancing a radical project of transformation of urban reality within a reformist context. We also reflect on the relevance of Lefebvrian ideas for understanding and inspiring contemporary struggles for the right to the city.     

Discourse in a Material World

We challenge recent assertions that discourse studies cannot de facto address materiality. We demonstrate how a Foucauldian theorization of discourse provides a way to analyse the co‐constitutive nature of discursive and material processes, as well as explore the power relations implicated in these relationships. To illustrate our argument, we identify exemplary studies that have effectively combined a study of discourse and different aspects of materiality – bodies, objects, spaces, and practices. In doing so, we show how discourse scholars are able to study both materiality and power relations.     

Management consultants as improvising agents of stability

Relatively few studies have paid theoretical as well as empirical attention to what use organizations have of management consultants and their services. By studying how buyers and sellers of management consulting services describe what management consulting is and represents, this study questions common understandings in the literature, i.e., that management consultants act as agents of change or as standardizers of organizational practice around the world. It is argued that consultants can be understood as playing the role of improvisers because there is considerable uncertainty among both buyers and sellers as to what use organizations really have of them. Playing a recognizable, yet indefinite role based on an institutionalized foundation, in both discourse and practice, of what actors such as consultants are supposed to do in certain situations, helps client organizations to reduce the uncertainty experienced. The conclusion is that management consultants can therefore be understood as agents of stability rather than agents of change.     

Innovation and entrepreneurship in the academic setting: a systematic literature review

In the knowledge society, universities have assumed new missions and relations in order to contribute to economic and social development, while preserving their own sustainability. This article aims to explore scientific literature on innovation and entrepreneurship in the academic setting, describing how the field is organized, main terms and definitions, theoretical frameworks, and empirical models, in order to direct future research. A systematic literature review was conducted, in which articles indexed at Web of Science were initially submitted to a bibliometric analysis. Then, the content of a set of articles best fitting the objectives of the study was analyzed. Bibliometric analysis shows an increasing literature, with publications over more than 40 years. There are studies from many disciplines, with those in business and economics prevailing, mainly related to management and originating from the USA and Europe. Content analysis shows a fragmented literature, with definitions not showing a clear relationship between innovation and entrepreneurship, or their use within universities in coherence with their traditional definitions. Both theoretical frameworks and empirical models are very heterogeneous, but four groups of studies were identified based on their theoretical frameworks, and also based on their empirical models. With only a few exceptions, empirical models do not share many components and variables, and there are no clear boundaries between the different models. Despite the increasing literature, it is still fragmented and undertheorized, requiring more systematic and holistic studies, considering both the economic and the social aspects of innovation and entrepreneurship within universities.     

Leaders emergence in artificial populations: the role of networks

Social networks can be viewed as graphs in their basic form, but many networks of interest include positive and negative affect relations among nodes. The structural balance theory originally developed by Heider suggests how nodes may locally modify their relationships to maintain a sort of balance within sets of nodes. We analyze a model of leadership emergence in a social network and extend it by introducing structural balance among members when modeling the attitude toward the leader. This approach takes into account some of the mutual relationships among co-workers, including the adaptation process to achieve the balance. This component helps to explore differently the bounded rationality of agents when interacting, and prove the difficulty of finding a rapid and smooth covergent path to a social stable equilibrium.     

The economic and non-economic dimensions of social entreprises’ moral discourse: an issue of axiological and philosophical coherence

This paper focuses on the ethical frameworks of social enterprises, out of two basic organizational documents which are unveiling the corporate moral discourse (codes of ethics and values statements). Three types of well-known social entreprises have been chosen : (1) charitable clubs and associations ; (2) cooperatives and mutuals ; (3) conventional private sector foundations. The main contribution of the article is to present the basic connections between social enterprises’moral discourses and some philosophical schools of thought. The paper show how the moral discourse of social entreprises is more or less philosophically coherent. Rational coherence could be applied to values (axiological coherence), or to the philosophical grounds of the discourse (philosophical coherence). The ethical framework of social entreprises is conveying business concerns as well as socially-focused and philosophically-rooted concerns. It is both enhancing economic (business-focused) and non-economic (social) aims. The philosophical challenge of social entreprises is to build up sense of collective identity, without having an ambiguous moral discourse. The moral discourse of social entreprises should have an inner coherence : the various documents (such as the code of ethics and the values statement) should enhance the same set of values. Moreover, if social entrepreneurs are unable to provide a basic philosophical orientation to their corporate moral discourse, then they will not contribute to any social change, since their moral discourse will not be trusted by anyone who is carefully reading the main organizational sources of corporate moral discourse.     

A Tale of Three Discourses: The Dominant,the Strategic and the Marginalized*

abstract This study drew from a structurational view of discourse and employed a discourse analysis approach based on rhetoric and hermeneutics to analyse the organizational discourses operating in the UK operations of a global human resources consulting firm, People Associates. The aims were firstly to understand in what sense we can speak of ‘modes of discourse’ in organizational settings; secondly to explore the potential existence and nature of interrelations among different modes of discourse; and thirdly to explore the constructive potential of modes of discourse on their social and organizational contexts. The results suggest that modes of discourse can usefully be seen as rhetorical enthymemes constituted of relatively stable, normative structures and flexible, action‐oriented structures; that modes of discourse can interrelate through their deeper structural features, and can have mutually co‐optive or antagonistic relationships; and lastly that the constructive potential of discourse is based primarily on its deeper structures, and on the consonance of surface communicative actions with these structures. This research thus sheds light on fundamental definitional and substantive issues in organizational discourse; in particular offering a novel conceptualization of the nature of discourse, a further understanding of discursive interrelations, and finally one way to understand its constructive effects on social organizations.     

Knowing What You Don’t Know? Discourses and Contradictions in Knowledge Management Research

ABSTRACT Even though knowledge management scholars generally advocate explicit management of knowledge, there is research that cautions against the unintended consequences of such efforts. Some researchers go as far as arguing that knowledge and management are contradictory concepts ( Alvesson and Kärreman, 2001 ). This paper explores the apparent double‐edged nature of knowledge management by developing a theory‐based framework that highlights different fundamental assumptions about knowledge and its management. This framework, which is an adaptation of Burrell and Morgan's four paradigms of social and organizational inquiry, distinguishes among a neo‐functionalist, a constructivist, a critical and a dialogic discourse. We use the contradiction of managing tacit knowledge, which has been highlighted in the knowledge management literature, as an analytical device to explore the four discourses in more detail. We show how notions of knowledge, and what it means to manage knowledge, vary across the four discourses. We conclude that all four discourses need to be appreciated, understood and represented in knowledge management research for this area of inquiry to deal with the rich and problematic nature of managing knowledge in practice.     

THE CULT[URE] OF THE CUSTOMER

Much organizational restructuring, at least in the UK and USA, seeks to replace organizational regulation by that of the market. These developments centre around an emphasis on relations with customers - the ‘sovereign consumer’- as a paradigm for effective forms of organizational relations; they are apparent in, and underpin, a wide variety of organizational developments: just-in-time, total quality management, culture change programmes. Understanding these developments requires consideration of the discourse of enterprise of which the culture of the (internal) customer constitutes a key element. Defining internal organizational relations ‘as if’they were customer/supplier relations means replacing bureaucratic regulation and stability with the constant uncertainties of the market, and thus requiring enterprise from employees. This discourse has fundamental implications for management attempts to define working practices and relations and, ultimately, has impact on the conduct and identities of employees. Understanding these developments is not possible if analysis remains at the level of the organization. It requires that organizational restructurings, and the discourse which supports them, be located within the social and political rationality of enterprise. The certainties of management, the conviction that environmental challenge and competitive threat must be met by the cult[ure] of the customer, are due to managements’largely unquestioned acceptance of the normality and perceived good sense of the discourse of enterprise.     

论IRM中的上市公司价值提升

上市公司的会计舞弊、内幕交易行为行为,从不同的角度可将其归结为不同的问题,如信息披露、诚信建设、形象管理及公司治理等。但是,如从战略管理的角度分析,上市公司的隐瞒欺诈行为则在于其投资者关系管理的缺陷。投资者关系管理是资本市场发展的必然要求;它的行之有效,是提升上市公司价值的重要策略,这不仅表现在它对上市公司内在价值的弥补,也在于对上市公司外在价值的彰显。     

社会化媒体背景下企业公关危机处理新思路

当今社会已经进入了社会化媒体时代,人人都有手机,人们随时随地都能利用网络传播个人信息与观点。企业成为了一座时时刻刻被人们用放大镜围观的孤岛。因此,传统的危机公关正面临严峻的挑战。论文详细分析并总结了社会化媒体背景下运用传统的公关危机方法处理企业品牌危机存在的不足,并针对社会化媒体背景的特点提出了企业品牌危机处理的新思路。     

Unpacking the Dialectic: Alternative Views on the Discourse–Materiality Relationship

This paper extends the issues raised in this forum by highlighting assumptions and characteristics of the discourse–materiality relationship that appears in five explanatory frameworks, including the Foucauldian approach and the materiality–performativity perspective presented in the previous two papers. It argues for preserving the dialectical relationship between the two by holding the tensions between them in continual interplay. Using a dialectic lens, it overviews how each of the frameworks treats the point of entry, nature of the relationship, and management of these tensions.     

Managers as Practical Authors: Reconstructing our Understanding of Management Practice

In Conversational Realities (1993), John Shotter draws on social constructionist suppositions to conceptualize management as a rhetorically-responsive activity in which managers act as 'practical authors' of their social realities (pp. 148–59). From this perspective, organizations are reworked from permanent, independent social structures to relational landscapes continually shifting from the imaginary to the imagined in interactive moments. Managing is seen as an embodied and situated dialogical activity in which managers act as authors of organizational realities through their conversations. In this article, I take as my central premise, the constitutive and metaphorical nature of language, and explore the practical, enacted aspects of Shotter's concept of authorship. Specifically, I suggest authorship may relate to how managers attempt to construct a sense of who they are, create a shared sense of features of their organizational landscape, and how they may move others to talk or act in different ways through their dialogical practices. I draw on research conversations with managers to explore how everyday poetic talk may be crucial to the process of constructing self, realities, and meaning. This 'reconstruction' of management practice offers both a different way of thinking about managing and potential dialogical resources which may allow managers to author or construct organizational experiences in more deliberate ways.     

Regulating the Regulators

Abstract

Many countries are working on the realization of a new sort of public management, which is less governmental and more market oriented. As a consequence the role of health-care managers is changing. They are increasingly addressed as (social) entrepreneurs. This article is based on the results of a survey sent to Dutch health-care executives. The aim of the survey was to explore how the new discourse affects the practice of management. The results show that entrepreneurship is a construction and a contested concept. Nevertheless, executives are very sensitive to the concept. It certainly confuses them and can make them feel more vulnerable. However, new expectations can also perform an important function as a catalyst for executives to rethink their role and their position. From that point of view the phase of multi-interpretable expectations and vague discourse can be seen as a necessary phase in realizing health-care reform.     

Management “flavours of the month”: their role in managers' lives

Existing analyses and critiques of the succession of management fads and fashions entering managerial discourse and activities are complemented and developed by drawing on participant observation research carried out in an organization utilizing a variety of “packaged innovations”. It is shown that what are sometimes mocked as “flavours of the month” (FOMs) play a role in the double-controlproblem faced by all managers: the problem of managing their personal identities, careers and understandings at the same time as contributing to the overall control of the organization in which they are managers. Managers in the organization studied are shown generally to be critical of the “flavour of the month effect” but there is nevertheless an equivocality about how such ideas and practices can function.     

企业管理:高绩效到卓越

在经济全球化和市场竞争日益激烈的大环境下,几乎每个企业都面临着提高企业业绩和增强自身竞争力的巨大压力。那么如何才能在市场竞争中立于不败之地,保持长久、稳定的发展呢?本文从企业管理学角度详细论述了卓越企业应该具备的特质,并结合实例提出一家高绩效企业只有通过企业文化竞争、重视员工价值、关注社会效益并充分履行社会责任几方面的努力才能成为一家卓越企业,从而在经济发展中独领风骚。     

Fads, Techniques and Control: The Competing Agendas of TPM and TECEX at the Royal Mail (UK)

The paper offers empirical insight into how traditional thinking can continue to dominate contemporary change initiatives, and suggests that the propensity to repackage and sell 'old' management theory as new techniques reflects the persistence of fundamental, insoluble dilemmas in the nature of organizing. Empirical evidence is drawn from a detailed qualitative study of two case study sites at the Royal Mail, the UK postal service. The analysis shows how the two different change initiatives of Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) and Technical Centres of Excellence (TECEX) are in competition through their methods and discourse, and how this reflects underlying and competing differences in ideologies of management. It vividly demonstrates how contemporary management thinking can involve repackaging old ideas in new rhetoric and a tendency for faddism. In organizations such as Royal Mail the consequence is that far from proving to be the solution to organizational problems, the techniques perpetuate a traditional management dualism in strategies of labour management between control and autonomy.     

Analysing the Influence of Institutional,Organizational and Interpersonal Forces in Shaping Inter‐Organizational Relations*

abstract Much of the literature on inter‐organizational relations assumes that firms operate as relatively autonomous and cohesive units that are (1) unimpeded by wider institutional norms governing the industry as a whole, and (2) allow little or no role for the boundary spanning agents who oversee and monitor ‘contracts’ on a daily basis. This perspective is not surprising given that so many studies rely solely on questionnaires completed by a single respondent within one or more of the organizations. Nor has there been much recognition of the dynamic interplay between forces at the institutional, organizational and interpersonal levels. In order to address these issues, we propose a framework that explicitly focuses on forces at these three levels, as well as the interplay between them, in order to analyse how and why inter‐organizational relations take the forms they do. We argue that trusting, OCR‐type relations are more likely to be produced and reproduced when there are strong institutional forces promoting common obligations on both parties, and there is a relative mutuality of power relations between the organizations. However, because the contract is maintained by boundary spanning agents, agreed norms at the institutional and organizational levels are a necessary but not sufficient factor for OCR to develop. Conversely, in the absence of these forces, there is less incentive for either organization to establish and maintain close interpersonal relations, and indeed ACR‐type, distant relations may be beneficial for organizations and individuals that wish to dispense with existing contracts.     

The Political Ecology of Virtual Water in Southern Spain

What does virtual water conceal? This article synthesizes political ecology with ecological economics to question the understanding of the scientific concept of virtual water as part of an independent objective reality, rather than as a construction supported by pre‐existing ideas. The discourse promoting both the concept of virtual water and the methodologies used to estimate virtual water flows is structured according to some underlying ideas that are framed within market logic and the rationality of international trade. Consequently, it produces a representation of water as a factor of production that does not challenge the hegemonic construction of water scarcity in nature, and proposes a water management system the main purpose of which is to maximize efficiency in the use of the resource. We reveal the ideas underlying the virtual water concept to show how a critical approach to ecological economics can be complemented by political ecology theories. In this article, we use epistemological reflection as a starting point, with the specific objective of contrasting this reflection with the reality of water in the horticultural sector of Almería (southern Spain), in order to bring to light those aspects made invisible through the use of the virtual water indicator in a concrete case study.